Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Sign ahead: Crossroad

Oh yes I am alive !!!!

In a slight dilemma right now regarding the road ahead. So I'll spend this post outlining my current thought process (muddled obviously) and hoping that readers (if any are left) will come up with some constructive comments.

Right now I am stuck between deciding whether to pursue an MBA or pursue poker as my longtime career goal (MBA blogs maintain MBA parlance !!).

Each have their own pros and cons, but they aren't mutually compatible. Doing an MBA and getting into a long-work-hour job would essentially mean that between work and family (did i mention im tying the knot in Jan 09) time for poker would be extremely restricted if not completely non-existent. At the same time an MBA is a much much safer option than a high risk venture like poker.

When it comes to taking up poker full-time, heres the kind of timeline based framework I have in mind. My girlfriend finishes her PhD sometimes in 2011-2012, my green-card application wont come through till maybe 2013ish. Thus the earliest I can quit work and start playing pro would be in the 2013-2014 range (remember without a green-card I cant quit work as I'd be booted out of the US in seconds). Also to rake in any kind of decent dough from poker, I would need a poker-bankroll in the 50-60k range, maybe even higher, possibly 75ksih is a good number. My current poker accounts have about 15kish in them, so I have about a 5 year time-frame to get to 50kish. Certainly doable if I dont keep taking my wiinings out and go on binge spending.

Also of great importance is the fact that if I do go fulltime in poker, it gives me the independence of settling down in any city I want, basically in the same place where my girlfriend/wife goes to work. Not to mention the enormous freedom/independence it brings in terms of flexi work-hours.

Just to put things into perspective in terms of numbers, heres this year's numbers:

9-5 job : 115kish

poker: YTD tournament profits: 50k

poker: cash game profits: havent worked it out yet, should be in 10-15kish range.

poker: some other significant profits in the 30ksih range

I havent done the math regarding how an MBA degree will stack up in terms of ROI versus full-time poker, but might be close, especially if I factor in the feel-good feeling of doing something I love and the flexi-hours and the opportunity of settling down wherever I want. I know of atleast one person (Rizen, see blog on left) who left an accountant job to get into poker fulltime.

6 comments:

How about this for your career goal: the world's first high-rolling MBA poker player! I guess you just need a way to figure out how an MBA might be useful to your poker goals. The way you've described it, you either work FT until 2012 and then take up f/t poker ... or do an MBA graduating in 2012 and then take up f/t poker.

Are you sure playing poker fulltime would be enough of an intellectual challenge and not become boring? To use a (bad) analogy, I love playing Diablo2 but if someone paid me to do it all day long five days a week it would be even worse that my current job, and that's saying a lot...

@DG: if i do take up (big if here) poker FT, theh the mba and 150k odd $$s associated with that is pretty much down the drain, not something i'd like.

@applicant: getting bored is least of my concerns, more crucial is the fact whether i'm good enough to rake in high 6 figures per annum consistently through poker. Remember going FT in poker would mean no 401k, no retirement benefits etc etc.

Mr. ParishiltonYou cannot do this for life. You will not be able to do this for life. It is a gamble afterall, and I am saying something after gzillions of people have already said - money is not everything !

Take my word, do the other thing. Otherwise, go for it and remember in you bad times that somebody advised you not to do it.

And let me say this as an extension - why not you do something, or be a teacher, a nurse, a something (other thana poker player) that gives you a small amount of money...and do poker in the spare time.

About Me

OMG stands for Oh My God. Its origin can be traced back to the time when, after watching the whole of American Idols season 2, I realized that Clay Aiken was actually not a girl but a boy. The very first historical documented use of OMG is "OMG-Clay-Aiken".
This blog would be a chronicle for a(n) MBA admit (class of '12), but would avoid the usual cliches (read gmat prep, essay prep, interview prep etc etc). Although it would hopefully be, more informative and more entertaining than your usual mba-next-door-blog.
Current profession: Research scientist in the oil and gas space.
Desired profession: Professional Poker player.
More realistic desired profession: Energy and commodities consulting/Sales and trading.